So, exam time + car in the garage + wanting to cut anyway = have been to the gym once since my last post. I've been doing my 4 hours of krav maga weekly plus 10 rounds of heavy bag work these last few days. I love taking out my study frustration on the heavy bag! I do combination drills, krav maga technique drills, practice my footwork, and finish it with a one-round punchout drill (punch as fast as you can nonstop for 3 minutes).

It's a nice change from using running as my main source of cardio. I kinda burned out on running last year.

I also started off the heavy bag session tonight with 15 knuckle pushups, and finished it off with 2x15 knuckle pushups. I did them on my hardwood floor, but with my handwraps on.

So, I switched gyms for the summer to the cheapest one available (because I'd have to pay more to use the uni gym during the summer) - it's at a community centre and despite being pretty ghetto, it has a power rack while the uni one only had squat racks, so that's nice. I decided to deload most exercises by about 10 lbs from my previous PRs because it had been a couple of weeks since I was consistent with lifting. Now I'm 100% back in the game, mentally and physically.

So, as you can see, only 2 PRs this week on the pullups and Pendlays. Everything else was deloaded after realizing that being lazy with the lifting for a couple of weeks really did decondition me a bit.

Squats are my recent focus. The new gym has a power rack in front of a mirrored wall (like...RIGHT in front of it). I never got a view of myself lifting. I never realized my stance was so wide! That wasn't a problem though. What was a problem was that I realized I wasn't going below parallel. I was hitting parallel sometimes, sometimes not quite getting there. I immediately deloaded 20 lbs (185 to 165) and focused on actually going below parallel. I'm MUCH happier now. However, as a side effect of squatting so deep with a pretty wide stance is that I've ripped the ass of 3 pairs of boxers. I'd get down to parallel and hear "rrrrrrip". Whoops! I think I need to invest in some boxer briefs for lifting or something...

I'm ready to set new PRs and beyond on all my lifts this summer. I'm considering switching to an intermediate schedule (weekly increases instead of each session) for squat, overhead press, and possibly bench because I've hit a wall on each of those a couple of times already. It doesn't surprise me considering how far I've come in these past 4 months (I just looked through my notebook and realized I added 100 lbs to my squat in 3-4 months, which was an increase of over 100%).

So. Here's the deal with my squats. I am seriously f*cking up something in my left glute, possibly where the IT band starts. It's like a more serious version of my problem in my very early days, and I'm certain it comes from an asymmetric form. My little brother was watching me, and said my left foot seemed behind my right one, with my torso rotated toward the right a bit. I tried evening things out, but that put more stress on my left glute and ramped up the pain massively, which made me realize my stance must have become asymmetric recently as a way of avoiding the pain of this injury. The injury itself I'm sure was from a slightly asymmetric stance to begin with (this is an issue I struggled with months ago and though I had fixed). I'm going to blame the fact that the past few weeks have been at this new gym, with a new rack, in front of a mirror. So many things changed that I'm sure the kinks in my form I had worked out resurfaced because I had lost whatever landmarks I was using before.

In any case, I definitely need to take a break from squatting. The pain is starting to radiate down my leg in certain positions (making me wonder if it could be piriformis syndrome). It's really frustrating but I know that squatting is obviously the last thing I should do right now. I'll need to take a break, and start back up with light weight trying to address whatever form issue caused this in the first place. It's frustrating because I was almost back up to my PR weight of 185, only going much much deeper than before (I've been squatting to/past parallel which I could never do before). Maybe I pushed the depth too much, too fast?

If anyone has recommendations for leg exercises I might be able to do before I try squatting again, I'm all ears.

As for deadlifts...after hurting myself squatting, I was warming up and made it to 205 when I realized I couldn't attempt my work weight. Too much pain/fatigue/aggravation from the squats.

At least I hit PRs on pretty much everything else to make up for the squat drama . Blew past my previous bench plateau weight of 125 and did a solid 130 yesterday without any hints that I might fail. Hoping that means I can nail 135 on my first attempt on Friday! I also threw in an extra set of dips at 40 lbs because the first three didn't tire me out enough. My 115 lb Pendlays went great, but my first attempt at 120 yesterday was less than stellar...I noticed some hip drive in a few reps and my last couple didn't make it all the way to my chest, so I'll be repeating the weight.

In other news, I got my P1 in Krav Maga this past Saturday! It's the first rank (out of 5). So if someone tries to attack me because they're tired of waiting for the power rack, at least I'll be able to drop them like a wet sack of potatoes

Oh and angryvegan, I don't recall what brand the EAAs are. Calories are whatever I feel like eating...I'm not into calorie-counting. When I was bulking, I just made sure I ate a ton. Right now I'm trying to cut a bit, so I'm eating more or less "regular" amounts of food (what I'd eat even if I wasn't working out calorie-wise).

Aw, man, I'm so bummed out about your left glute issues. Sorry to hear that. Sounds like you're doing well in other areas though, so nice job on krav maga and your PRs in several lifts! That's great news! I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks for the support guys. Unfortunately, the hip issues have gotten worse. The piriformis issue is still there (but slowly improving), but while playing ultimate frisbee, I managed to pull my left hip flexor. So even light weight squats and deads are completely off the menu, probably until August. I'm angry but the last thing I want to do is go back to squatting too soon and have this go on as a chronic issue for ages. I finally figured out where these injuries came from, and it's specific to the retarded rack at the ghetto gym I'm stuck at for the summer. I had to do this weird kind of twisting motion to each side to get the bar unracked, which would stress the piriformis so much more than the squats themselves. When I'm back to 100%, it will be the end of July anyway in all likelihood, so I'll be able to go back to the uni gym I was using.

Spending one month away from squats and deadlifts sucks, but it's really not too long. You shouldn't see much of a strength loss, I think. And your numbers on upper body movements will probably see some gains. Nice job reaching your (and my) body weight on bench, haha! I'm kinda pissed I haven't gotten there yet, but I'm happy for you!

Thanks for the encouragement, guys! I've gone to see a sports med doc and have my first day of physio on tuesday...I'm hoping for the go-ahead to resume squatting and deadlifting, but we will see what the physiotherapist has to say!

Rob - It felt pretty damn good! Even better than the first time I put the plate on the bar for squats (which at the time was an accomplishment!). Using a full plate on weighted dips is a kick too. The other day at the gym, I was alternating sets with this random guy who was bigger than me, and after I finished my first set he said "Damn that's hardcore!"

I'm switching to weekly increases on my upper body lifts as I feel I've hit that "intermediate" level where adding weight each session becomes impractical. Pendlays are up to 125 lbs, OHP was a near miss (failed last rep of last set!) at 90 lbs, and pullups/chinups are up to 30 lbs weighted.

Oh, and did I mention I've been cutting weight at the same time? Down 3 pounds from my all-time high about a month ago of 137, while still hitting PRs on my upper body lifts. I did this mostly through diet, as I've been a little nervous about most types of cardio given my hip problems. Waiting for the physio's opinion on which activities are safe and which aren't. I'd be happy with dropping a couple more pounds, but I don't want to start losing muscle or sliding backwards on my lifts. I figure I'll start eating big when I can get back to heavy squats and deadlifts, since bulking without squats or deadlifts seems like a recipe for getting fat.

So, here's the spiel. I took a few weeks off from doing squats/deadlifts and worked on my physio and stretches to help with my piriformis syndrome, and I'm recovering well. A few weeks ago, I started incorporating squats and deads back into my workouts, but started with low weight and worked back up slowly.

For squats, I worked on changing my form - my feet were really wide apart before, so I brought them closer to shoulder width and focused on increasing the depth compared to what I used to do. My hip flexibility has been improving ever since I started 5-6 months ago, and I am finally getting depth I am actually happy with.

After all these weeks of laying off the lower body exercises and the slow rebuilding of my form and strength, I finally hit new PRs on the squat and deadlift today! I definitely let out a few growls as I got those last reps up, haha. I'm at new PRs for all my upper body lifts as well, since they were all I had to work on for a couple of months.

Now that I have heavy deads and squats back in my routine, I'm going to up my calories and protein and try to start bulking again. My goal is to be a lean 150 by next summer - which would thrill me since I remember not all too long ago being 110 and thinking 130 was a pipe dream!

So here's my official goal for the coming year: Hit a lean 150 lbs bodyweight (13 to go), hit 2X BW on the deadlift (300 pounds, 55 to go), and 1.5X BW on the squat (225, 35 to go). I think those numbers are definitely doable. Not sure what my goals are for the upper body lifts...bench has always been a weak point and my 5x5 at 140 has been a real accomplishment after 5 months of hard work...I'd like to think I could hit 175 for my 5x5s but it's hard to picture.